


A Shadow on the Horizon

by CineJu



Category: VALORANT (Video Game)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, i tried to stick to the lore but its so vague
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-16
Updated: 2020-12-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:22:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 8,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28112343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CineJu/pseuds/CineJu
Summary: She never thought she’d be called Sabine again.Viper thought she’d left everything behind when she joined Valorant Protocol -- even her name. Until a piece of her past shows up by surprise, and she is forced to deal with the emotions that come with it.(Portuguese version/versão em português: Uma Sombra no Horizonte)
Relationships: Omen/Viper (VALORANT)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 9





	1. I Won’t Lose my Home Again

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Português brasileiro available: [Uma Sombra no Horizonte](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28112616) by [CineJu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CineJu/pseuds/CineJu)



> So, I cannot believe Viper/Omen isn’t a main ship because boy do they have potential. I really liked how this turned out even though it’s my first real fic, and it’s really dramatic because they’re both very dramatic characters haha. I tried to stick to the lore even though it’s so fucking vague (except for how Viper and Omen both work for Kingdom, and the order the agents joined Valorant). I hope you like it!! :)

The only good thing about the floor crashing down under her feet was the chance to start over, and better. 

To be fair, the floor had crashed under everyone’s feet. First Light had changed everything, mostly because now everything revolved around Radianite. Sabine had been working on understanding its secrets when her laboratory got attacked by Kingdom, an organization that wanted the power of Radianite no matter the cost, for some unknown and obscure purpose. She had been one of the first to integrate the substance into her work, and she fought back the attackers with it. In the end, she had a destroyed lab and an invitation to join Valorant Protocol. 

Jett had come to recruit her to build them weapons, but she had been tired of staying behind the scenes. 

“Only if I get to be the one to use them,” she had said. 

Jett smiled. “We can arrange that,” she said as she held out her hand. “Welcome to Valorant Protocol! Oh, and we get it if you don’t want to use your real name. You know, a bunch of agents working against a big organization and all that. What do you want us all to call you? And don't worry, you definitely won’t have the worst name, there’s a guy calling himself Cypher,” she laughed. 

She had taken a second to think about it. 'Sabine' seemed like a skin that didn't fit her anymore. So she did what any good snake would do, and shed it.

“Call me Viper,” she had said. 

So now she was Viper, an agent working for Valorant Protocol with a small group of Radiants and others who managed to work Radianite into their machines. The group was about to get a little bigger that day. She didn’t know much about the new recruit, but they were going to be introduced that day in the meeting. 

Viper walked into the room just about two minutes before the meeting was supposed to start, as usual. Jett waved to her across the room where she was talking to Phoenix and Sage, and Viper nodded back. She appreciated that Jett didn’t insist on talking too much to Viper, unlike some of the others. Viper wasn’t there to make small talk, she was there to do her job. 

“Hey Viper, I heard you did a great job on your mission last week. When are we going on a mission together? I’d love to see your skills in person,  _ cariño _ ,” Reyna said. To be honest, Viper did not like Reyna; she seemed to like the sound of her own voice a bit too much. Viper was about to answer when a deep,  _ familiar _ voice called, surprised, from the side of the room.

“Sabine?” 

It startled her. The only person there who knew her name was Jett, and that was definitely not Jett speaking. She turned to face the speaker and saw someone unrecognizable. The man, if the word even made sense applied to him, was a ghostly figure who wore a hood, and under it she could only see a faint blue light coming from three slits in his face. And yet, somehow, she knew him. 

It was something about the way he’d said her name, the way he stood with his shoulders, and his voice -- a bit hoarse, but still the same. She knew exactly who he was, and she did  _ not _ want that piece of her past in that place. She hesitated for a moment, unsure what to say or do, too aware of Reyna’s interest in the scene, when Brimstone called for the start of the meeting. She’d never been so glad for a meeting in her life as she turned to take a seat. She had to deal with that situation later, but that meeting would give her some good time to think about it. 

Brimstone waited until everyone sat down. Valorant Protocol was a new initiative that didn’t have so many agents, and they’d decided not to start with an inexperienced Radiant in charge. Brimstone may not know a thing about how Radianite worked, but he was a good strategist, and he could organize the teams with the best abilities to get the job done. 

“Hello everyone. I’m gonna start today by introducing the newest recruit, cause if I don’t then we won’t get anything done until you all meet him. Omen, welcome to Valorant Protocol,” Brimstone said gesturing to him. 

Viper just hoped he wasn’t the omen of her destruction. 


	2. His Hope is His Poison

She didn’t linger after the meeting. It had been completely ordinary, with the same boring talk about a Kingdom base they’d found out about a few weeks earlier, reports from the missions in the past week, and all that. Viper had barely paid any attention, between trying not to look at him and thinking about how the hell she was going to handle that. 

What had  _ happened _ to him? Well, clearly First Light had played a part -- she’d never seen someone so affected by Radianite as him. But that wasn’t what bothered her about his presence, not at all. She’d left all her past behind, all her naivety, she had become all she had once been scared of becoming, and she did  _ not _ want to explain that to anyone who knew her before. Especially to  _ him _ . 

Because before First Light, before all that, she was just Sabine, a young chemist working for the US government, trying to optimize non-lethal toxins for use in the army. Her first two or three months on the job were nearly perfect: the team was nice, the laboratory well stocked, the work interesting. It wasn’t until the first report came back from the field, about a smoke bomb she’d perfected, that she started having doubts. Her work was always supposed to be non-lethal, but the reports,  _ his _ reports, commended her efficiency in incapacitating the enemy, the way the toxins were well focused, the way the targets couldn’t breathe and how easy that made it to kill them. 

The words haunted her for weeks. Every cold description of the effects of her work seemed like an accusation, a finger pointing straight at her. She spent nights filled with nightmares of choking on clouds of poison, and days pretending it didn’t affect her. And yet, she couldn’t bring herself to quit the job. It was hard to find a job like that, with such good perks, she told herself. The job market wasn’t very welcoming for a chemist. It only made her feel more like a monster for being so selfish. 

Something had to give: either she would leave the job, or suck it up and get used to it. What happened was that she met him. 

He was the leader of the team whose job was testing the improvements made in the lab before they were distributed to the rest of the army. He was the one seeing with his own eyes all those terrible things her work brought onto the targets, the one who was _ using _ her creations on real people. Reading the reports he’d written, she had pictured him in her head as a terrible person, a monster fit for the weapons she gave him. However, that wasn’t the man she met. 

The person Omen had been once was a quiet but friendly man, who talked little but seemed always happy to be talked to. He told her she’d made the cloud of toxins just right, not big enough to hurt innocent people but not small enough to dissipate too fast, that it was impressive, thorough work. At first, she hated it -- she didn’t want to hear how good she was at hurting people. But, after he left with his team and a new shipment of destructive chemicals, she kept thinking about it. If she wasn’t there perfecting the army’s chemical weapons, someone else would be doing tha t-- and probably doing a worse job -- and people would die anyway. She was good at her job, she liked doing it, and she liked that someone else noticed it too. Slowly, she came to terms with her work, and when he showed up the next month with praise for her work and an easy smile for her, she smiled back. 

If Sabine had seen what she would turn into back then, she would have been terrified, disgusted; and if he still expected her to be that naive girl who thought nobody deserved to die gasping for air, he was in for a surprise. Somehow, she didn’t want him to see the worst parts of her, but at the same time she hated the very notion of ever being seen as that soft woman again. She had left all that behind and become someone completely new, and he represented everything she wanted to keep buried. 

As soon as the meeting was over, she left as fast as she possibly could while keeping her dignity intact. She could notice Reyna watching very interested from the corner of her eye, but she ignored it as she walked out of the building and made her way to the dorms.

“Sabine.” His voice came from right behind her, and she hadn’t heard him coming. She stopped. It was pointless trying to avoid it. 

“I know I don’t look like I used to anymore, so I understand if you didn’t recognize me--” 

“I did,” she interrupted. There was a beat of silence. She had been the one who filled the silence between them before, but what was there to say now?

“Oh,” he said. Even though there was nothing human about his face, she had the feeling he smiled faintly. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

“A lot has changed since we last saw each other.”  _ That didn’t even begin to cover it _ , she thought as she looked at him. 

“You don’t have to tell  _ me _ that.” Again, she imagined he was smiling. Did he somehow give that idea or was she guessing because she knew his way of talking? “Maybe we could get something to eat and share our stories? I haven’t seen many familiar faces since--”

"Look, I'm not interested in  _ reminiscing _ and  _ sharing stories _ ," she interrupted. She had let herself get carried away by the impact of seeing him again, but that was all she didn't want. "That's in the past," she said and turned to keep waking. 

"Sabine--" 

"Don't call me that. My name is Viper." 

"I just wanted to talk, he said, annoyed.

She kept walking. It was unsettling, after everything that has happened, to see him there, almost exactly like he always had been. 

"Sabine." He appeared in front of her, and it took her completely by surprise. Some effect of Radianite exposure, clearly. "I know things are different now, but --" 

"What's different is  _ me _ . I'm not going to say it again: I'm not the Sabine you knew. My name is Viper, and I'm not interested in talking about the past." 

She dodged him and kept walking, and this time he didn't stop her. She didn't turn around to see if he was still standing in place. 

It was fascinating -- now, he was almost a shadow, and yet she could see traces, familiar gestures. She almost recognized the way he was looking at her. 

She had no interest in being seen in that way ever again.


	3. Don't Get in my Way

There was nothing like a good practice to keep her mind off her troubles. 

When Viper joined Valorant Protocol, she was one of the very few who had never been in a real fight before. She had trained day after day until she could match their pace, and she found it was good to keep her mind from wandering.

Right now, she was in the middle of a training session with the team. Brimstone had said it was the easiest way for all of them to get used to Omen’s pace and him to theirs, but she was trying her best not to think about him right now. Viper raised her poison cloud with a flip of a switch, a distraction so Raze could throw a grenade from behind the other team. Of course they weren’t working with their gadgets at full power -- the point wasn’t to kill anyone or to give Sage more work than she could handle -- but it was good practice. 

The other team rushed forward, but she was ready for them. She and Reyna raced to defend their position when she saw Jett rushing off the side, probably to take their spike somewhere else. Reyna confirmed she had it under control, so Viper raised her toxic screen for cover and ran in pursuit. Jett was faster, but Viper kept her in sight as she hurried behind, trying not to be noticed. She was just catching up when a shadow appeared right in front of her and grabbed her arm.

Omen had a strong grip and the element of surprise. She hit him on the side, but he didn’t even flinch. 

“Good hit,” he said. “You learned some things since the last time I saw you.” 

_ Condescending asshole _ , she thought. She hit him with her knee right in the stomach, and flipped a switch on her wrist. Smoke started to come out of her wrist emitters, and he let go of her arm. He coughed, and as he struggled to breathe she said: 

“That’s what happens when you keep thinking about the past: you  _ lose _ . Worry about right now,” and she darted to catch up with Jett. 

That little encounter had cost her precious time. When she got to the site, Jett already had the spike set up. Viper barely managed to defuse the mock bomb while Raze stalled Jett. 

A win, even such a hard one like that, was always enough to set her in a good mood, but not that day. Her mood only got worse when, before she could go to the showers, Brimstone stopped her.

“Viper, I noticed you stopped for a moment after you were done with Omen. You can’t waste time like that on a mission, especially since you almost didn’t defuse the spike in time. What happened?” She was wondering how the hell she was going to answer that question when he added, “No, you know what, it’s your problem and I don’t care as long as it doesn’t affect the team. Just get it together, okay? You’ve got a good head on your shoulders, don’t waste it.” 

She nodded. “I’ll handle it.”

“Good,” he said and walked away. 

Brimstone was right, of course. She told Omen to stop thinking about the past, but she had done the same thing in a different way. She never would have stopped to say anything to anyone else. That man was going to destroy her focus, and she needed to settle that. The sooner the better.


	4. It's Hard Not to Play With my Food

She always thought that if you want something done right, do it yourself. There was no point in waiting for Omen to come talk to her, she would have to take the first step if she wanted this settled. Even if it was the last thing she wanted to do. 

He was a hard man to find, it seemed, because it took her a good walk around the buildings to find the bench where he was sitting down. He seemed so serious now, but maybe it was just that he didn't show emotion so easily anymore, without a human face. She sat down next to him, looking forward. 

“Sabine,” he said. She had caught him off guard, it seemed. “Viper,” he corrected. Good. Maybe then he’d stop associating her with all she wanted to forget. 

“Omen.” The name felt impersonal, cold, distant. “That’s what you’re calling yourself now, right?” 

He nodded. “It didn’t seem right to call myself the same thing after... everything.” 

Then why didn’t he  _ understand _ when she did the same thing?

“Me neither,” was all she said. He was quiet for a second. She wasn’t going to read into it and try to figure out why. "Omen, what do you want from me?" 

He didn’t even seem to know. He was messing up her entire life and didn’t even know why. "I'm just happy to see someone I know again,” he finally said. She was  _ so _ tired of that answer. 

"I left all that behind. And you should do the same," she said. 

"Why do you want to forget? What happened to you?" 

How was she supposed to explain the rush she’d felt, that day when Kingdom attacked her laboratory looking for her work with Radianite? How could she possibly look him in the eye and say she had never felt just as good as when she had turned on her emitter, her finest piece of work yet, and looked the attacker in the eye as he breathed in her poison? When she was breathing easily, standing with her mask in the hell of her own creation, and he fell to his knees trying to beg, but all that would come out of his mouth was coughs and blood? When all the arrogance in his eyes turned to desperation? How was she supposed to say nothing felt quite as good as the true power of knowing she was alive and someone was dead because she had been smarter,  _ better _ , than him? 

How was she supposed to tell the man who knew the girl she had once been, about the monster she’d become? 

"The lab was attacked by Kingdom. I killed the attacker, with the same emitter he was trying to steal from me." It didn’t even begin to cover it. She couldn’t look him in the eyes all the same. 

He didn’t say anything. She turned to look at him, and he seemed --  _ sorry _ for her. Anger coursed through her entire body. 

"I  _ liked _ watching him choke," she snarled, staring into his eyes.  _ Feel sorry for me now _ , she thought.  _ I dare you _ . They stared at each other. “You don’t know me at all,” she said. She was done with him, with his expectations, with everything. She got up with her blood boiling. 

“Do you know what happens _ every time _ I use my abilities? Or even when it’s just a bad day? I have to focus all my willpower to stay in this world, to cling to it so I can make it back when I die. It's  _ painful _ . Sometimes it seems like I should just -- let go, but I don't know what happens then. It's terrifying to know that if one day I'm not strong enough to stick around, then I'll just… dissipate.” The words blurted out of his mouth like he’d been keeping them back for an eternity. “You’re the only thing that makes sense now. You’re familiar, and nothing else feels even a bit familiar anymore. I just want to feel like myself again, Sabine. Is that so hard to understand?”

The anger had disappeared, leaving her like a deflated balloon. She never imagined he was in so much pain, but how could anyone imagine anything like that? She could understand now why he wanted to focus on the past so badly, with a present like that. 

But her present wasn’t like that, and the more she looked back, the more she thought of the girl she had been, who had nightmares about the woman she was now. That girl was dead, and Viper had no time to mourn her. 

She realized she was still staring right into him. 

“I’m not what you’re looking for,” she said, almost whispering. “Don’t you see? Omen, we’re not the same people we used to be. I can’t pick up your pieces, and you definitely can’t pick up mine.”

He didn’t say anything when she walked away, and she was glad he couldn’t see the tears that had started to form in her eyes.


	5. You Want Revenge, Viper? Now's Your Chance

Viper was standing in front of Brimstone’s door. It had been days since she had settled that mess with Omen and she hadn’t faltered in any training sessions since. Of course things weren’t settled at all, but he would have to handle his problems and she’d handle hers, and they seemed to agree about that. Right now she was more worried about what the hell Brimstone had called her there to say. There was no point in calling her to his office just to ask if she had handled her problem. There was also no point in her wondering when she could just ask what he wanted. She knocked.

“Come in.” He had a lot of important-looking folders spread out on the desk, and he seemed absorbed in his very big pile of paperwork. “I don’t know how they convinced me it was a good idea to take this job. I’m going to drown in all this one day, and I’m telling you, that’s no way to die. Take a seat,” he said. 

“You asked to see me?”

He nodded. “Of course you know about the Kingdom base in the arctic we found out about, right? Well, we’ve been trying to get information on that but it’s all complicated and we can’t get much more than crumbs, you all know that. But,” he said, “Cypher came back from a mission, and he didn’t really get much, but he found out the location of that base.”

“Interesting,” she said. “So you’re setting up a mission?”

“Yes, but we don’t know anything about the base, how it’s set up, what they do in there… We assume they’re collecting Radianite but you never know. What I want is more information before we set up an assault. It’s a  _ very _ important mission, Viper,” he took a second to give an intimidating look, “and you’re leading it. Take a team of five, yourself included, and map that place out. They never need to know you were there.” He took another pause. “Can you handle that?”

“Yes.” A mission as important as that, and for her first shot at leading? That was a chance she could  _ not _ screw up. “I won’t fail.”

“You better not. What team are you thinking? Cypher, of course. Omen? Seems like he’s good at stealth.” 

She didn’t like to admit it, but he was right. Most of the agents in Valorant Protocol were very good at blowing things up and doing damage, but stealth was harder to find, and she wasn’t going to screw up her first mission over something like that situation with Omen. They were both adults, both good agents, and they could handle going on a mission together. “Yes, seems like a good choice. Sage would be a good addition,” she suggested.

“Oh, she’d be great, but I need her on another mission. You still need two members,” he said.

“Then Killjoy, and Sova. If it’s alright to take both him and Cypher?” 

“It’s fine. A good team,” he said, nodding. He handed her a folder, handpicked from the mess on his desk. “Here’s all you need to know before you talk to your team. You leave in two days. Good luck.”

“Thank you. I won’t disappoint.”

“Good. Dismissed,” he said, even though she wasn’t a soldier to be dismissed. She walked out of his office bursting with anticipation. Her first mission on the lead, and something as big as that.  _ I must be giving a good impression _ , she thought with a satisfied smile. 

She flipped through the pages in the folder as she walked to her dorm.  _ Codename: Icebox _ , it said in big letters on the first page, with a picture taken from afar with one of Cypher’s cameras. If that was the best picture they had of the base, they definitely needed that mission to succeed. She was going to read that folder before noon, and then she’d start to go around to meet the members of her team. She’d meet Omen last to ask him if he was alright with that mission, and if he wasn’t, well, she’d have to take Jett. She was good at moving fast and not so much at moving silently, but it would have to do. 

The meetings with the first three members of the team were good, and all of them were excited to go on a mission as important as that. She liked working with all of them, and she trusted all of them in a fight. Now all she had to do was see if  _ he _ would be alright with working with her as well. Despite their issues, Omen had been a great operative even before First Light. Even if she didn’t know anything else, Viper trusted his skills and his judgement. She just had to see if he trusted her too, after everything. She hated asking him like that, especially after what he said about his abilities. Could she ask him to put himself through that? He was an agent in Valorant Protocol, and he had put those skills at the service of the cause; but now she knew what that cost him. 

There was a soft knock at the door of the office she’d taken for the afternoon. 

“Come in,” she said. 

“Viper.” She had never heard him sound so cold. That seemed like bad news for her mission. 

“Omen.”  _ Just keep it professional and it will be fine _ , she thought. “I wanted to talk to you. I’m leading a recon mission to that Kingdom base in the arctic we found, and you and your skills would be a fine addition to my team.” She could picture him raising an eyebrow at her  _ very  _ vividly. 

“And you think it’s a good idea?” 

She had been thinking about that answer for most of the afternoon. “In the field, we can leave our issues behind and just do our job, and I trust that you can do that very well. If you can trust my skills and judgement, I don’t see any problems.” 

There was a pause as he considered her words. She knew that it made no sense for him to accept -- how could he? After everything she’d said about how she wasn’t the person he knew, every terrible word she’d thrown his way? 

“I trust you,” he said. 

It made no sense. And yet, somehow she knew he would say that, just like she knew it was him under the hood that day at the meeting. 

_ Keep it professional. _

“Good,” she said, getting herself together. “Then we leave in two days, first thing in the morning.” She arranged the papers in the folder, just to have something to do with her hands. 

“Alright,” he said. He seemed -- disappointed? She  _ had _ to stop trying to guess how he was feeling. She was growing sure she was just projecting instead of actually reading his signals. He turned to leave.

“Omen?” She said, not even knowing exactly why. He looked right into her eyes, or at least she guessed he did. She should have just let him go, but it was too late now. “Thank you,” she said. 

He nodded once, and then he was gone in a cloud of dark smoke.

\-----------

(Omen's pov)

In his room, Omen sighed. Once, it had been so  _ easy _ to talk to her, and now, she acted like she didn’t know him. It killed him every time. 

When she said ‘if you can trust my skills and judgement’, he had no doubt he did. She was a genius, and he had seen her in a fight. The real question was: did he trust  _ Viper _ ?

She talked about being a completely different person, and he could see she had changed. But to say the Sabine he knew was completely dead? He didn’t believe that, or rather, he didn’t want to believe. Maybe he was being a fool, but he knew exactly how he felt about her. 

“I trust you,” he had said. 

It was a beautiful thing to catch her off guard, to see her carefully built persona fall apart for just a second. And then, just as suddenly, she was Viper again and was talking about the mission. He didn’t know what he expected. 

And then, as he was turning away, she had called him. “Thank you,” she had said.  _ For what? I couldn’t stop trusting you if I tried, _ he thought. He was definitely being such a fool. He nodded, unsure what he could say. Her green eyes seemed like they could see right through him. 

Maybe one day he would be able to talk to her without feeling like he’d been punched by all the memories of her at once. 


	6. Let's Take From Them What They Took From Me... Everything

It was around six in the morning, and Viper was with her team on a plane headed to the arctic. Viper had never been the type to get too nervous, but she had to admit that the anticipation was getting on her nerves. They had nearly no information, and she had never been the one responsible for a team. So that was why, for once, she was welcoming the idle conversation. Omen, on the other hand, sat quietly in the corner, and the rest of the team seemed comfortable to just leave him be. 

“I want to try out my new device,” Killjoy said excitedly. 

“What does it do?” Cypher asked.

“It starts up a forcefield that detains all the enemies inside! And it only takes a few seconds to set up.”

“And it doesn’t detain us too?”

“No, do you think I’d build something so useless? It recognizes our comm links! So don’t lose your comm link, or you might die. But it will be fine,” she said.

“We’re not here to fight,” said Viper. “Our goal is to go in and out without being noticed.”

“Of course,” she said. “But I’m always prepared.”

Viper agreed. “I have enough poison with me to kill two hundred people.”

“I wonder how much you bring when you  _ are _ expecting a fight,” said Cypher. She just smiled. 

“We’re about to land,” said Sova from the cockpit. She straightened out her emitters and got ready. It wasn’t going to be easy.

They landed far from the base, and took good care not to be noticed on the way. The cold wind hit them hard as they followed Cypher’s lead to Icebox, and soon they could see the walls. Viper said:

“So, we go in and we get out without being noticed. We get as much information as we can, and we meet back at the plane in two hours. When we get in, Killjoy, Cypher, you go left. Omen, Sova, you go right. I’ll take the mid. All clear?”

They all agreed. 

“Then good luck, and let’s go.” 

Her heart was beating fast as they quietly climbed the wall. Sova and Omen turned to go into a building, and Cypher and Killjoy turned to a narrower passage with containers at the sides. Viper faced an open courtyard with some more containers and snow piling down on the floor. It would certainly be a challenge to go unnoticed in such an open space, but she was dying to try. 

She walked close to the containers. There were many scattered across her area, and more to the side Killjoy and Cypher had gone. If all of them were filled with Radianite, Kingdom had way more power than they imagined. She’d open one if she got the chance, but that place was far too open for that. 

She saw a narrow tube leading up into a building, a nice shortcut to check the inside.  _ Too convenient _ , she decided. Better to take the long way and see that tube from the inside than to risk going into a trap without even the advantage of higher ground. She went around, taking a turn right, and saw a way into the building Sova and Omen had gone into. The two of them could handle that building, and they needed to be efficient, so she turned the other way.

She kept going until she saw a short stairway. She was almost going up when she heard footsteps; she had moments to find a place to hide when four guards walked downstairs, clearly bored in their patrol.  _ Let’s hope they stay bored _ , she thought as she watched them turn the corner before sneaking out from under the stairs. 

She had only just made sure the room was empty when an alarm started sounding.  _ Shit, did they see me?  _ She’d been careful, but if one of them had turned back maybe they could have seen her. A long shot, but right now it didn’t matter. 

“Viper, do we fight or do we go?” Sova’s voice came from her comm link. 

“We can’t take an entire base alone with no intel. Go back to the plane and don’t be followed,” she said with a low voice into the communicator. She pulled her gun and watched the door she’d just walked through. 

“Copy that.”

“Understood. Our side seems clear,” said Killjoy. 

There didn’t seem to be footsteps coming from the door, but there was a long hallway and the entrance to that tube she’d seen from the outside. If enemies came from two or three of those entrances she’d be done for. 

Loud footsteps came from the bottom of the tube. Enemies, maybe five or six. She had the higher ground and the element of surprise as she threw a poison emitter down the tube and fired. Shots came flying back, but they couldn’t see her and the poison was already kicking in. She shot a few more times and heard bodies falling to the metal floor. 

She was turning to take the hallway over to where Killjoy had said it was safe, when she saw them, just a moment too late. A large group of soldiers entered through the stairs.

She felt the sharp pain of a bullet before she even had the time to react. 


	7. One Last Push, Let's Make Them Hurt

The shot took her by surprise, but Viper was nothing if not prepared. She had emitters on the floor before the shot even stopped echoing around the room, and turned them on while she took cover as well as she could. 

The bullet had hit her in the left thigh. Every movement sent pain shooting up her leg, and she was bleeding a lot. She shot at the soldiers coming through, trying to handle them as fast as possible so she could run to a safer place to take a better look. 

As soon as they were dead, she rushed as fast as she could to the end of the hallway. Blood dripped all along the way, but leaving a trail was the least of her problems as she leaned against the wall and assessed the damage, with her heart beating fast.

"We heard gunshots, is everyone okay?" Cypher said through her comm link. 

"We're alright, we're getting out," answered Omen. "Viper?" he added with a note of concern in his voice. 

Viper knew three things: the base was big, enemies were looking for her, and she would never be able to walk fast and quietly enough to get out alive. 

Well, if she was going down, she would take as many enemies as she could with her. 

"I got hit," she said. "But it's not bad and I've got a plan to get out. Go to the plane, and if I'm not there in fifteen you go without me." 

There was a moment of quiet. 

"Understood," said Sova. 

Good. Now she had to take care of that leg. Sage had said in some first aid training that you should never do a tourniquet if you don't know what you're doing, because it might stop the blood flow. But Viper couldn't keep holding pressure on the wound, and she wasn't going to live long enough to lose the leg anyway. She tied it as tight as she could and got up. She still winced in pain when she tried to put weight on the leg, but she had shit to do. 

The cold air hit her as she crossed a passage and got to a platform. The only way down was through a rope. What kind of base has ropes as the only way to get up and down from places? She had to find a spot where she could focus the enemies to take down as many as possible at once, but getting down from that platform with a leg injury and holding a gun was going to be tough. Fortunately she couldn't see anyone there. Now that she was thinking about it, they had all been trying to get to the side Omen and Sova had taken. Maybe they were the ones that set the alarm and not her. Well, it didn't matter now. She went down the rope as well as she could and hit the ground with a painful jolt in her leg. 

As soon as she was on the ground, Omen appeared in front of her, surrounding them both in black smoke. 

"What the hell, I almost shot you!" 

"If you do have a plan, I'm here to help. But I don't think you do," he said. 

"You disobeyed my orders, you left your partner--" 

"Sova can take care of himself, and your orders were to let you die." He stared right into her eyes. "Am I wrong?" 

He wasn't, and there was no point in pretending otherwise. "There's no way I'm getting out of here alive, and we both know it. Might as well take them down with me." 

"I'm not leaving you behind." He left no room for argument in that tone, but she wasn't going to leave it at that. 

"Omen, you can get out as easy as you got here. Let me do my job, and get back to headquarters with as much intel as you got. If you're here, I can't use my poison at full strength," she argued. He didn't seem affected in the least. "Just listen to me for  _ once _ , Omen!"

"I'm not leaving you behind," was all he said. 

"Fuck you." She sighed. He didn't move. "Then make yourself useful, asshole." 

"That's the plan," he said. "Some help?," he asked, pointing to her leg. 

"Fine," she said, and he pulled her arm over his shoulder to support her. It didn't take even two steps for them to realize that wasn't going to work. None of them could hold a gun in that position. 

"I've got an idea, but you're not gonna like it." 

"If it's better than this, go for it." 

He put his arm under her legs and picked her up. Her thigh hurt with the motion, but her arms were free to hold her gun. 

"I run, you shoot. Okay?" 

She nodded. It was… not as uncomfortable as it seemed. "Let's go," he said and the smoke vanished around them. 

Omen took them between the containers and through a passage, as both of them tried to listen for footsteps. They were in the same open courtyard she'd walked through at first, right under the tube where she'd killed all those enemies. Viper heard noises coming from the metallic building, and from the tube; maybe they had found the bodies she left behind. 

Omen turned to the other side, back to where they'd entered. He was going a lot faster than she would have on her own, and faster than anyone carrying someone else probably should; teleporting and conjuring smoke might not be the only gifts Radianite had given him. 

She was just thinking that had been quite easier than she thought when she heard loud footsteps coming from the same direction they were going. There was a group coming right toward them, and a lot of people right behind Viper and Omen, who were just a signal away from turning toward them, and then they'd be surrounded. Omen gripped her shoulders a bit tighter and took cover behind a big container, but the door to the building was right there, and someone could notice them at any moment. 

"What do we do?" He whispered. "They'll find us in a minute." 

She had an idea, but -- no, that would get him killed. If only she was alone… 

"I can tell you have an idea and you don't wanna tell me," he said. 

"You have to go. I have a plan but it will get you killed if you stay." 

"Out of the question," he said. "You're the genius, right? Figure something out." 

"This time I have an actual plan, and it's our best shot. Go back to the plane," she said, "and I'll meet you there." 

"I'm not leaving you behind." 

"Omen--" 

"Sabine, I'm the one who set off the alarm. Someone saw me, I teleported away, not fast enough. So if you die, it's on me and I won't have it. I'm staying with you." He glanced toward the door, and then back at her. She understood, but there was no way they could both get out of there in another way.

"You're so goddamn  _ stubborn _ ," she said, frustrated.

"You're one to talk. What's your damn plan?" 

She could hear the enemies walking around, scouting the place very carefully. Still a bit far away.

"I have a very strong toxin, enough for everyone in this base I think, and I can set it off around this whole place. I make some noise, they get here, I set it off, it forms a big heavy cloud around me, they die in seconds and I get out." 

"So you want me to leave you alone, in a big cloud of poison, surrounded by every agent in this fucking base and they're all shooting blind? And you can barely walk? No way," he said. 

"You can't run and carry me out of here without breathing, and you’ll die very fast if you breathe this in," Viper argued. "You have to let me do this, or we're both dead and that gets us nowhere." 

"You don't know that." 

"What?!" She was getting annoyed with him already. 

"I can do it. I can carry you out through the cloud of poison if you shoot the enemies standing in the way." 

"That's impossible. I have an antidote for the mild effects, but if you breathe in too much of the toxin, it’s irreversible. You die. Very painfully." 

"I can do it. Trust me," he said. "I'll get you out of here." 

She stared right into where his eyes would have been. He was unwavering. She saw how strong and fast he was when he carried her -- maybe the Radianite had made him strong enough for that. She had said she trusted his skills. And right now, as the footsteps came closer, she knew she trusted  _ him _ . They didn’t have time for any other plans. 

"Alright," she said. She set the emitters on her wrists as he took a few deep breaths. "Ready?" 

He was looking at the door when he nodded.

"Good luck," she said. She banged on the container behind them, to call the enemies’ attention. She waited until she heard footsteps from both sides, and switched the emitters on. 

She just hoped she wasn't making the worst mistake of her life. 


	8. Welcome to My World

(Omen's pov)

The emitters on her wrists hissed, releasing the toxin just as the soldiers started coming from the building on their side, already taking their shots. Omen dodged to the side as Viper shot back at them, and then he started running.

He could feel the toxin burning in his eyes and nose as it spread. The enemies were also feeling the effects, coughing and missing their shots, but Viper had her mask on and she was a good shot. His lungs already hurt a little -- he was asking too much of them, running and carrying her while holding his breath, but he could do it. He just had to hold on long enough to get out of there. 

He felt his left hand slipping -- because of her blood, he noticed. He adjusted his grip, dodged a body on the floor, and carried on. He could barely see in front of him, with his burning eyes, but the enemies weren’t doing much better. The poison was thicker than he expected, since he’d always seen it from the outside. He hoped he wasn’t going the wrong way -- the cloud also seemed bigger than he anticipated. Viper reloaded her gun. 

It seemed like he’d been running for kilometers.  _ What’s another death? _ , he thought. It was terrible as motivation, but it was almost true. For him, death wasn’t necessarily the end, but there was always a chance his next death would be the last, and he wouldn't even know until it was too late. And it always hurt, like he was being torn apart before he could be put together again. He could feel the nothingness pulling him -- the universe knew he shouldn’t be alive, and it wouldn’t let him forget it. That moment, running through a cloud of poison, was stupid, it was playing with his luck. It was taking one step closer to the day he wouldn’t make it back. 

He looked at Sabine in his arms, shooting mercilessly at the enemies ahead. His eyes burned, the green smoke surrounded them, his lungs hurt, but for her it was worth it. If he made it, she would have a better chance of surviving. For her, another death was nothing. 

But he didn’t know how much more he could take. His lungs almost couldn’t hold the air anymore. He would have to take a breath soon, but he couldn’t even see the edge. It should be close, but he had no way of knowing. He had to make it, for her -- but he was too close to his limit. He had to be near the edge, with how much he’d run. There was no other way. 

Omen breathed in. He just hoped Sabine wouldn’t pay the price if he had miscalculated. 

\-----------------------

(Viper's pov)

Viper was nearly out of bullets when they walked out of the poison cloud. Omen took a few steps out and fell to his knees, coughing. She’d seen it happen too many times to not know what it meant. 

“Shit, no, you can’t die  _ now _ ,” she muttered, already reaching for the antidote in her equipment. She always carried some with her in case an ally breathed in some of her poison by accident, but would it be enough for a situation like this? She injected the antidote in his arm, and coughed up blood. 

For a moment, she didn’t know what to do. He was on the verge of death, in front of her, and there was nothing she could do. Then she heard noises coming from behind her, from the cloud, and she got up, with her leg stinging with pain. There could still be enemies coming from the cloud, even if they were weak, and there was nothing she could do for Omen right now if the antidote didn’t work. She focused -- or at least she tried to focus -- on what she could do at the moment. Pointing her gun and watching for enemies, she turned on her comm link. 

“Change of plans. Omen and I need to get out of here, but neither one of us can jump the wall. We’re going to try the main entrance, but we need some backup to make it out.”

“We’re on our way,” said Cypher. Alright, they had a plan now -- simple, but better than nothing. They were near the entrance, she just needed to make sure they wouldn’t be taken by surprise from the back. Most enemies had come over to the mid when she turned on her poison, so most of them were dead now. It shouldn’t be hard, especially with the rest of the team helping, but Omen was in bad shape. How much of the gas had he breathed in? She should have known it was a terrible idea. She should have insisted for him to leave. 

There was nobody coming from the cloud, and anyone who was still in there was dead already. They had to go. 

“Omen, look at me. You can’t die now, alright? Not now, not after everything. We have to get out of here. Just -- take my hand, let’s go,” she said. He took her hand and she helped him up, putting her weight on the good leg. He stumbled, but got up. She put his arm around her shoulder. 

He tried to say something, but just coughed a few times. She only had one good leg and none of them could hold a gun, but right then it didn’t matter. They just had to get out of there. They’d taken care of most enemies, so what mattered now was surviving. She could  _ not _ be the reason he would die. 

She kept going, her left leg hurting more with every step. It wasn’t far, but the conditions were less than ideal. She made it to the outside wall and leaned on it -- as soon as the team got there, everything would be alright. She turned to see how he was doing, and saw that he was barely conscious. 

“Oh no, Omen, stay with me, just hold on just a little more, okay? You can’t die now,” she said. Panic was seeping through her voice. “Not after everything we’ve been through! You have to -- please!” She fought back tears. She had been such an idiot this entire time, and now he was dying in front of her and it was her fault, and there was nothing she could do. She muttered his name -- not Omen, but his real name. He was choking on her poison, and she couldn’t save him. 

“Sabi--” he started to say, and coughed up more blood. 

“You don’t have to say anything, okay? Just stay with me. Just don’t die, please. Not after all this. I’ll get you out of here, and you’ll be alright. Just stay alive -- please.” 

He nodded, which was all he could do. She held his hand. 

Gunshots echoed outside the main gate. 

“We’re going in,” said Killjoy through Viper’s communicator. 

It wasn’t hard at all finding the team, or getting out of the base with their help, but Viper could barely think straight. Later, she would realize she didn’t even remember getting on the plane. All she remembered from their retreat was a single thought, running in loop through her mind. 

_ This can’t be the end for him. _


	9. I Let Go For a Second...

Viper was startled awake by Omen moving. 

It took her a moment to remember what happened. They were in the med bay, she had fallen asleep in the chair next to his bed while he was unconscious, and now he was waking up. She realized she’d fallen asleep holding his hand, and let it go. He didn’t seem to notice; he stirred and groaned, and tried to sit up. 

“Don’t move around too much, you’re still weak,” she said. 

“I -- are you alright?” He turned to her, disoriented, but visibly concerned for her. 

“Yes. You’re the one who had me worried,” she said. “What the  _ hell _ were you thinking? Actually, what was _ I  _ thinking? I should have insisted for you to get out of there.”

“I’m fine, right?” He tried to argue.

“Barely! Sage had to use all her power to heal you, and you’re still not completely fine.”

“And your leg?”

“Sage’s mission was bringing a new member to the team, and she can heal too. But it’s nothing -- you’re the one who almost died.”

“I don’t die so easily,” he said. 

“What if this death was the one?” The silence made it clear he was thinking the same thing. She hesitated for a moment. “If you didn’t come back, I don’t know what I would do,” she let herself say. Her voice came out lower than she intended.

“Sabi-- I mean, Viper--”

“You can call me Sabine,” she interrupted. “If you want to.”

“I thought you wanted to forget your past,” he said, but she had the impression that, if he could show it, he’d be smiling. 

“Maybe there are some things I don’t want to leave behind.” She sighed. “I’m sorry, I’ve been awful to you this whole time, I said some things that--”

“It’s alright,” he said.

“No, it’s not, I’ve been a selfish idiot, and if you had died I would never forgive myself.”

She hadn’t put that thought into words until now -- she hadn’t let herself think about what might happen if he didn’t survive. The weight, not only of her fear of losing him, but also the weight of saying it out loud, was terrifying. But he grabbed her hand, and she looked at him. 

“I’m not dead,” he said. 

She squeezed his hand. It was colder than she expected, a clear memory that he wasn’t the same as before. But she wasn’t either, and for the first time, it wasn’t a bad thing. She smiled. 

Sabine had left everything behind, and when he showed up, he crashed down the well-built structure she’d made from the rubble of her old life. But right then, holding his hand, she wasn’t the naive girl she’d been, but she wasn’t the cold assassin either. And maybe, being alive with him was enough. 

The good thing about the floor crashing down under her feet was the chance to start over, and better this time. 


End file.
